


A Bright Source Of Pleasure

by Zigzagwanderer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: 1830s, Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cousin Rey, Falling In Love, Kylux Big Bang 2019, M/M, Masturbation, Nice Armitage Hux, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period romance, Pining, Sexual Tension, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:54:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21694969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigzagwanderer/pseuds/Zigzagwanderer
Summary: So I have tried to write this in a kind of period style for the Kylux Big Bang 2019, as Christoph's captivating prompt was that 'Armitage and Kylo are rival artists in the mid nineteenth century. Rivalry leads to romance...'(Actually the prompt was way better than that!!)Anyway, the main thing is the artwork, which i have totally fallen in love with!! So thanks, Christoph, you are a joy to work with!!!!!Updating whenever I can get the editing done!!
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 86
Kudos: 67
Collections: Kylux Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Christoph_Einar (ChristophInTheNightSky)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChristophInTheNightSky/gifts).



“My dearest friend,” Monsieur Dopheld says, amused, “you really must stop staring at that young man’s backside. No wonder he has fled behind that dreadful portrait of the Lord Mayor’s wife.”

Hux blinks, mortified beyond measure.

The poet slaps Hux across his narrow back. “But Papa Mitaka is proud, nonetheless, my dear boy; we will make a Casanova of you yet.”

Hux spills his champagne all over the floor of the gallery, which is probably just as well; Hux is as uncomfortable with strong wine as he is among the lumpen crowds of rich industrialists that are there to buy the ‘latest thing’ in art.

“Well, I cannot fault your taste! He must certainly be a model, yes?” Dopheld cranes his neck to try to see more clearly this incredible rarity; something which has caught Hux’s eye that is not a tree, nor a river, nor a cloud. “Bien. Then the matter is simple, yes? Engage him for your work, and, with my help and guidance, seduce him.”

Dopheld gestures crudely and Hux wants to die.

“Enough of your noble landscapes, Armand. Your grey skies and so-serious vistas. Why let your grapes wither on the vine, unplucked? You are not so very bad looking in your proper gentlemanly way.” Dopheld elbows Hux as if they were two drunks in a tavern. “Take my advice. Put down your paintbrushes. Get a man in your studio and into your bed and perhaps we will yet see you smile.”

Hux whispers with whatever dignity he can muster. “Mitaka, I beg you not to call me by that dreadful pet-name, and please do not continually confuse your own lascivious nature with mine.”

He does not find any of it diverting in the least. Hux might abhor these people, those wealthy patrons that Mr Snoke courts as customers, those who would put a price on Art itself, but they are Hux’s living too, and they will not suffer to hang the work of a sodomite upon their parlour walls.

“Deny that you are enamoured if you must, but your pretty green eyes, and, I daresay, other parts of your skinny English anatomy, say differently.” Mitaka winks.

He has at least three mistresses and a dozen children, that all squabble together merrily, in his ramshackle apartments in Saint-Germain des Pres. Hux is fond of his friend and his unorthodox household, but it is different for poets, and for Parisians.

This, Hux thinks stoutly to himself, is England.

“I was not even noticing the faces, or, er, anatomies of those around me. I am merely casting about for Mr Snoke himself,” Hux lies, led by his nerves to finish his drink and take up another. “I would have a very forthright conversation with him, if I could but find him, here on his own premises.”

“Penniless as I am, I would part with one hundred francs to hear you argue with anybody, let alone that odious creature. He is easily the most hard-hearted art dealer in London, Armand.”

“Even a country mouse such as myself can roar when required,” Hux snaps, relieved to have dragged their discourse up onto higher ground. “Mr Snoke has sold my paintings to Bishops and to bankers, has he not? Am I worth nothing to him? I will have my own exhibition, if only to show these smoke-choked city-dwellers that there is a world of wonder out there, beyond their gilded drawing rooms.”

Dopheld regards Hux with affection.

Painting is Hux’s entire life.

“Oh foolish boy,” he murmurs. “Next time you stand in thrall to your so picturesque English countryside, remember that the good Lord made it to be admired, but also to be thoroughly _ploughed_.”

Hux decides to abandon the devil Mitaka to wallow in his sin, and goes to peruse the watercolours on the top floor of Mr Snoke’s gallery.

The attic viewing space is deserted, thanks to the narrowness of the winding staircase; few of the men who rub their fat bellies below venture this far upwards.

Alone, Hux breathes again.

It is not as peaceful as his sanctuary, his own beloved Starkilworth Valley, but at least there is some birdsong, courtesy of the metropolitan sparrows clattering away under the eaves.

The afternoon has all but passed. Dusk seems darker here, falling sombrely across all of London. In the streets beyond, lamps are being lit.

Hux smooths his hair away from his face, and longs for the sanctuary of his haphazard yet homely little cottage.

He does not belong in this capital, this citadel of soot and commerce, with it’s tiny, hemmed-in parks that are, each time he visits, gnawed away a little more by the voracious sprawl of man.

Dopheld tells him over and again that he should find himself an uncivilised island somewhere, and for a moment Hux dares to picture such a peaceful plot, and himself in it.

Somewhere lush, and exquisite, and remote.

Scandalously, the man from downstairs, whoever he might be, drifts into Hux’s daydream.

Hux closes his eyes, and sees them both in his imagination, clothed only in tropical sunlight, and in the droplets of shining water that cling to them from recent bathing in a nearby waterfall. The man’s skin is a warmer shade than Hux's own, a complimentary colour that, for once, Hux would wish to capture with more  
than just his artist’s eye, and his brittle sticks of charcoal.

Hux shakes his head. It is, he knows, a ludicrous vision; he has no practical experience of such things, and given the direction of his desires, it is hightly unlikely he ever will.

He has never so much as kissed another soul, beyond a declaration of friendship towards his dear cousin Rey, who he considers to be a sister in all things but the actual biological facts of the matter.

“The ruined temple is not like that in ral life, from what I recall of my travels in Greece.” A deep voice behind Hux makes him start in a wholly coltish manner. “And I find the inclusion of yet another ravished, naked maiden in these classical scenes rather…unnecessary, do you not?”

Hux turns and flushes in sudden confusion.

The man from downstairs frowns slightly at the picture in front of them.

From a distance, Hux thought the stranger remarkably beautiful; standing so close, Hux struggles to even breathe.

“I…I…please excuse me,” he stammers. “I was…”

“In a reverie. I could tell. And not one that included this unfortunate lady, I think.” The man smiles and indicates the rather tedious painting before them.

Hux goes a deeper red, as if the man could see himself cavorting shamelessly about in Hux’s mind.

“I…I must confess to having absolutely no interest in the female form whatsoever,” Hux manages, distractedly.

“You would rather paint Eden, than Eve?” The man tilts his head to take Hux in, curious and encouraging.

Hux stares. For an intelligent, educated person, he is finding the greatest difficulty imaginable in forming coherent thoughts.

“You are an American?”

It is stupid. He is stupid.

“That I am.” The man smiles again, seemingly charmed by Hux’s gracelessness. “Goya said that the act of painting is about one heart telling another where it found salvation.” The man tucks a wave of long hair behind his ear. “Many believe my homeland is God’s own country. Have you seen America painted, may I ask?”

He has interesting cheekbones and smells of linseed. His general gracefulness would also seem to confirm the manner at which he makes his living, Hux thinks.

After all, at least two of Mitaka’s many lovers are artist’s models, so Monsieur Dopheld should know a muse when he sees one.

“No. I have not had the pleasure.” Hux cannot now rid himself of thoughts of the man unclothed, and posed upon a pedestal. What are his proportions, if not perfect? What glorious architecture does his simple attire conceal? “Of it. Of seeing America. Of seeing paintings of America,” he overcorrects himself with a grimace.

He would like to escape, and looks longingly towards the balcony. His way is barred, even as he steps forward, by a plumed hat which is steadily making its way up the staircase, atop a tall woman of Amazonian stature. She has hair of white-gold and an extremely firm set to her mouth.

To his great horror, she directs her lively step in his direction.

“So, you are unfamiliar with American artists as a species?” The man continues his efforts, even though the greater part of Hux wishes that he would not.

“Well,” Hux babbles, “I have heard tell of only one of note, who has the unlikely name of Wren, or some such ornithological soubriquet. A maverick, they say.”

“Oh?”

Hux swallows, cornered now by all that he dreads; confident, handsome people who would seek his opinion.

“Well, apparently, although I suspect they use that word when they mean that he daubs crudely at his canvas, with a certain style but without true feeling. And to be sure he most likely does so in the comfort of his comfortable studio, I would wager, rather than where an artist of the world should be, that is to say, actually standing with every thing laid out honestly before him.”

The woman strides over, a stormcloud in grey satin, having overhead his rambling, desperate chatter.

“Why, you skinny little prig,” she snarls.

Hux walks backwards and upsets an aspidistra.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Rude little wretch!” A large slim boot stamps the floorboards in a distinctly unladylike fashion. “Doing down a fellow artist! And, I might add, one who has as full a feeling as any carroty-haired, tight-laced, stuck-up…”

“Gwendoline,” the man with dark hair intervenes, placatingly. “Please. He did not mean…he does not know to whom he speaks…”

“Well! Honestly? Is _this_ what we came across the Atlantic for?”

“As you have revealed, Gwennie, we all have feelings.” The tone is quiet, but firm, and full of meaning Hux cannot follow. “Chief amongst mine at this time being fatigue from our journey, and a need for some food that is not _boiled_.”

The two stare at one another. Solidarity would seem to trump indignation, and the lady nods, feathers bouncing like flustered pigeons.

“I am sorry…” Hux blinks, helplessly.

The man lets the corner of his full lips twist up. “Please, do not trouble yourself. I should not have intruded, Mr Hux, without formal introduction…”

“No. I was, I mean I am…”

“Please excuse us.”

The Americans take their leave.

Hux knows he should be plainly relieved that the strange, uncomfortable scene has resolved itself.

Why he is not, he can scarcely say.

“Armand. There you are.” Dopheld clambers up into the attic and strides across the floorboards, so that he can flutter a folded paper in Hux’s face. “Put down that vegetation at once and read this.”

Hux leaves the aspidistra scattered upon the floor, much like his own equilibrium.

“Mr Snoke left this with his manservant before departing for Italy. He will not see you, my friend.”

Reading the brief note, Hux wonders how much worse his day can become.

“I am to be exhibited,” he says.

Dopheld raises an eyebrow. “And yet you are not overjoyed at this news?”

“ _’Alongside Mr Kylo Ren, lately of New York City,’_ ” Hux continues, his narrow face pinching closed.

Dopheld shrugs. “Well. It is a good start.”

“Good? Good? This is an insult. Mr Snoke clearly has not one whit of faith in my work.”

“At least your Mr Ren comes with a veritable Valkyrie of a bodyguard, should those social reformers that follow that deliciously dangerous Mr Poe turn up, throwing firebombs at your entirely blameless pictures.” He winces at a watercolour. “Although in some cases it would be a mercy ...”

Hux scowls at the thought of the well-known agitator Dameron and his gang of ararchist rebels. “Bodyguard? Whatever do you mean?”

“Mr Kylo Ren’s travelling companion.” Dopheld licks his lips after the woman who must havepassed him on the staircase. “She is quite the handful, evidently!"

Hux remains baffled.

Monsieur Mitaka merely smacks his bewildered friend on the back, again. “The young man you were just talking to? The object of your earlier, most loving looks?”

Hux begins to feel faint.

“ _That_ is Mr Kylo Ren, I have been informed,” Mitaka continues. “ _That_ is the very artist you are getting into bed with, if you will pardon the phrasing.”

Hux does not pardon Dopheld, not in the slightest.

But then, he very rarely pardons himself.  



	2. Chapter 2

The meadow is cold with dew, the soft green hills folding in upon themselves as if to avoid the coming light of day.

Hux knows how they feel; his night has been a short, strange one, full of self-doubts and recriminations. 

And his body; his body has not been his own since his return from London. 

Since meeting Mr Kylo Ren.

The smooth, fine, sheets, usually such a comfort after the fatiguing strain of travel, had grown more and more tangled around him during the slow turn of the hours.

Eventually, Hux had ceased chasing fruitlessly after oblivion, and threw the sweat-drenched shrouds far from his restless limbs.

He sat up, feeling prickled all over, and obscurely guilty.

A fox barked from the thicket.

Hux lit no candle; he knew full well what lay there, in his trim wooden bed; a solitary, melancholic spinster of a man. 

The clock in the stairwell ticked on.

The moon glared at him through the window.

Hux lay back under the weight of his companionless years, and the loneliness of his empty house that stood so still and dark around him.

He wondered what harm it would do, to take a phantom to his bed? A dark-eyed creature with stately form and soft, mahogany hair.

Hesitantly, Hux ran one hand down the white plain of his nightshirt, imagining it belonged to this _other_. 

His cock stirred, a lewd hillock amongst the flattish hollows and rucks of the linens. 

It grew and ached, as he drew around its dampening contours, his fingertips unpractised, trailing lightly at first, then more defiantly, as he cupped and dragged at the stiff, draped marble of himself. 

His breath began to quicken. He put his head over to one side, and half-buried his frown in the bosom of his pillow, the cotton like ice upon his fevered cheek. 

He was always ashamed to touch himself this way, to an extent that often outweighed the pleasure of such furtive forays into bliss, although he could quite never say why.

A bull in the field was not scared of its own needs, and had not God made them both, man and beast? 

The curtains fluttered inward.

Hux’s chest flushed and heaved, as he drew up the fabric of his shirt until it bunched high above his waist.

The cool breeze slid along his uncovered flesh like the eager attentions of a lover.

Exposed, his cock sprang, hot, and sticky, away from his belly, and he found a subtle sensuality seep into his movements, as he see-sawed his hips luxuriantly, and he allowed his knees to fall apart, his heels grinding down into the mattress.

Sketches formed in his head, and Hux no longer tried to halt them; they were his own thoughts, and not another soul would ever know them, or be able to condemn him for them.

Coveted, and clearly-defined, Hux pictured the sharp planes of male anatomy.

He pictured his rival, Mr Ren.

The line of his mouth. His neck, stripped of its kerchief.

His large hands, with knuckles like a raw, ragged mountain range. Too big, surely, to hold the delicate circumference of a brush. But, made, perhaps, to hold Hux down by the shoulders. To skim and soothe and stroke his slim and trembling form. 

Hux bit hard on his lip. A wanton moan issued forth despite this, and a name followed, drenched in desire.

Kylo Ren.

Now his touches were decidedly not his own; they were bold, and satisfying, all delicacy gone as he encouraged, teased, and _enjoyed_.

“Beautiful. You are beautiful,” Hux told the Ren of his imagination. “Hold me. Press. Like that…Like that…oh, please do not stop…”

Within some moments, fewer than he would have perhaps liked, yet more than virtue dictated, Hux had reached an infinitely sweet, wonderfully painful crest of feeling, his grip tense and trembling upon his prick. 

“Yes, that is perfect. You are perfect…” 

Belly clenched, Hux endured a completion that made him cry out into the darkness, filling his palms like a prayer answered and overflowing. 

Panting, Hux clutched at the cloth of his nightshirt. 

There was a distant, berating chime; dawn was not far hence. 

Hux tugged the bed back to some order, sleep now urging him to drowsily curl over onto his side, holding a rather lumpen cushion to his breast as if it was the most welcome of bedmates. 

Only then did he remember that the next morning was set fair, and that Mrs Reynold had therefore talked of making it a laundry day. 

“I will never hear the end of her ribaldry, if I do not take steps,” Hux groaned, and showed his mettle by forcing himself up out of his suddenly alluring nest, to creep downstairs and out into the dew-shining yard, where he stood, shivering, and made to rinse out the shame of his activities by dousing his sheet and shirt in a kitchen pail.

  
“Best of the day to you, Mr Hux.” The old herdsman called out as he crossed the lea in front of Hux’s easel. 

Smoke chugged from the chimneys of the farm atop the rise. 

Hux broke from his recollections to nod thoughtfully back. 

It was hard to feel evil, or blameworthy, when the sky looked as it did; the limpid blue covered by swooping angels’ wings of pink and gold and milk-white, all feather and fume.

Hux took off his jacket and opened his metal box of pigments. His soul sparked, growing softly afire with the appetite for creation. He picked up a piece of white gypsum. From such an ugly chunk of a thing, would form and pattern come, mimicking the divine. 

It was meat and honey to him, this thing, this endeavour, this _art_ , and wine too, and all song and every poem and all the riches of the world. 

If he could not have the marital happiness that he was moulded for, because whoever heard of a man taking a husband for better and worse, if he could have the pleasure of no other body, besides the poor substitute of his own, then at least he could have this.

A lamb wheedled plaintively for its dam down in the pasture before him. The church bells silvered the air.

It was only after he realised that he had been simply staring at his paints for a while, that Hux found himself wondering if 'this' was actually enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I guess this is a bit of a tribute-i would have loved to have seen Carrie and Dohmnall act out this conversation

And so, his days continued.

“I beg you to light another candle, Mr Hux.” Mrs Reynold swished in wearing an elegant pinafore that marvellously imitated the actual workwear of a domestic servant. 

Mrs Reynold was the wealthiest woman in the county. Yet, out of whimsy and, Hux suspected helplessly, an ingrained desire to meddle, she had for some long while appointed herself as his housekeeper. 

She judiciously selected, then placed a decanter deliberately at Hux’s elbow, tutting rudely at his scarcely-eaten supper. “You sit in the gloom like an old, blind dog.” 

Hux frowned himself out of his twilit dreaming. 

Just beyond the window, the tawny, tiger-striped sky prowled.

The ochres and mahoganies of the sunset-shadowed garden beyond his window had taken him back to Snoke’s gallery, to the sweet burnt sugar of Mr Kylo Ren’s eyes. 

Frightened of becoming maudlin, Hux laid a hand firmly over the pursed mouth of his glass.

“No more of your hedgerow brews, I beg you, Mrs Reynold,” he grumbled. “They are yet stronger than your husband’s Yuletide punchbowl. And please, remember your position is that of my sometime housekeeper, not my arch-tempter, nor yet my mother.”

The firelight flickered through the cut glass, another shade of amber-brown for Hux to contend with. 

He looked away.

There were brisk tidying sounds from the cluttered side tables and then a pile of letters was deposited unceremoniously in Hux’s lap.

“I took money from your study to pay the grocer. And I settled upon the new upholstery for the parlour settee with Mr Morris, as you seemed ready to dilly-dally until we were all sat about on the bare springs themselves.” Mrs Reynold ticked matters off upon her fingertips. “The top two letters are both marked 'private', else I daresay I would have seen to them too. This one, I believe, is from your darling Cousin Rey.”

It was Hux’s policy to retain all letters until opening them was eventually forced upon him. It was the best way to ensure that any invitations they held were thoroughly and irretrievably _expired_ by the time he saw them.

Having finished her sergeant-majoring for the day, Mrs Reynold then sat down in a most familiar fashion, opposite the armchair which Hux habitually favoured. 

When not immediately offered a drink, she sighed and helped herself to a glassful of elderberry wine. 

“You are brooding, Mr Hux, and let me tell you that, frankly, with your youthful face, you most emphatically should not. You look like a cross infant.”

Hux did not deign to respond. 

“Why not ask Miss Rey to stay for the summer? It would be a kindness if only to let her escape from her dreadful bore of a father.”

“Perhaps. If he would spare her from her household duties.” Hux reluctantly picked up a letter-opener. “She had a wonderful idea for a story she much wanted to set down on paper, yet her father does not approve of such _unladylike_ activities as novel-writing.”

They both snorted indignantly at _that_.

“Or, can we not have your French scoundrel and his harem here again?” Mrs Reynold boldly lit a cigarette. “The Mitaka children do so liven up the village, and I can discuss the decline of Montmartre with Clarice and Bettina.” 

“I believe Dopheld has added a Marie-Claire to the household since last he guested here. And we must not distract him currently. Monsieur Mitaka has a new volume of poems to write, if he is to have bread in his belly as well as ink in his pen.” 

Mrs Reynold chuckled in rather a low manner at this turn of phrase. 

Hux blushed. “I only meant that his profession is more precarious than even mine.” 

“At least _he_ does not let his vital liquid go dry in the inkwell,” Mrs Reynold muttered as she refilled their glasses.

“Madam," Hux allowed himself a scowl. “Pray do not let me detain you further. Surely your husband has need of you back at the manor house, perhaps to make _his_ supper a sheer delight, with your lively blend of wit and wisdom?”

“Don’t you worry, Mr Hux. You require my counsel even if you would not admit it.” The housekeeper winked. “And my big sweet bear Mr Reynold is a capable man in every way. He knows how to keep himself satisfied in my absence.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Really. I must also ask you to refrain from these…music-hall innuendos. Is that how they taught you to converse in those studios in Paris, all those many, many years ago?”

“Tsk. If my tongue was good enough for artists such as Cobot and Davide, dearest Toussaint and Vernet, then ‘tis surely good enough for the likes of you,” Mrs Reynold smirked, unperturbed at reference to her days as an artist’s muse. 

Hux hid his own smile. Her face was still as impertinent as it was elegant in structure, and the lines that did show in the flickering firelight told happy tales, of a youth never repented, and one that had made her middle-age a generous and tolerant one.

Would that he could love as she had loved, with freedom and honour.

Mrs Reynold took another appreciative sip and looked narrowly at Hux’s downcast eyes. 

“Ah, Mr Hux. I worry that you have grown so secluded. Was not once your life sometimes noisy with sheer joy? You laugh but rarely since your young baker friend wed and moved away, and that unhappy event happened nigh on two years ago this October.”

Hux turned to the fire to camouflage his rising colour. 

“I would have not been much of a friend if I begrudged Mr Jones his one true love, now would I?”

“True love?” The housekeeper all but spluttered. “Mr Jones did not even have the decency to marry for money, Mr Hux. He married for the pretence of respectability, as well you know. He married for the lie of it, which is surely not what our maker wants our blessed unions to be?”

Hux decidedly did not want to dwell on any of it, for it had been a bitter lesson. 

That George Jones had felt the same as he, Hux was sure. 

Glances and touches had begun to linger longer and longer on both sides of their acquaintance, innocently enough at first, then with stronger meaning. 

For one delirious summer, Hux had felt their feelings crossing over into something far more fond than friendship. But even as Hux was allowing himself to luxuriate in love for the first time, so George Jones was succumbing to panic, and self-loathing. By autumn, George had entered into a convenient alliance with a widow from a neighbouring parish, and Hux saw him no more.

The worst of it was that Hux completely understood. 

He loved his country, its sensibilities and civilisation, and had no wish to quit it or have it quit him. 

“And when you do dine with Mr Reynold and myself,” the redoubtable woman blundered on across Hux's heart, “you do not look twice at the company we invite for your pleasure. Granted, they are not particularly beautiful young men, but then, this is not Florence, Mr Hux, and there is a good reason that Cupid sometimes wears a blindfold.” 

Hux wondered, not for the first time, what the etiquette was for giving somebody notice that you had never actually employed. 

“The simplest solution would be for you to marry your cousin Rey.” Mrs Reynold added thoughtfully.

Hux stared.

“She is very kind, and would be most cheerful for us all to have about the place.”

Hardly able to frame a reply, Hux scraped a hand through his hair. “My good woman, have you not just finished telling me that a female person is not a piece of furniture, that one can use to make one’s life more _comfortable_ …” 

“Cousin Rey has known you all of your life, Mr Hux. There would be no deceit as to exactly what it was you were offering to her, I am sure. Companionship. And escape from her boredom.” Mrs Reynold tipped her fragrant ash into the fire. Some herbal blend she favoured, Hux noted. “And the… _physical_ …loving of a wife, well, it need not be the _trial_ that you fear it to be.” 

Mrs Reynold looked straight into Hux's wide, astonished eyes. 

“A very small amount of affection in the marriage-bed is sufficient, if artfully done, Mr Hux. You could learn how to please, and how to bring the entire conjugal matter to a swift, nightly conclusion. No matter how distasteful a feminine body is to you, you could decipher its secrets simply to keep Cousin Rey perfectly happy, and at very little inconvenience to yourself.”

Never had Hux known such mortification.

But Mrs Reynold was not done. “Many is the time I have closed my eyes and pictured another in place of the one I was with, Mr Hux. And there are devices that can greatly aid marital felicity, which I would be glad to provide by way of a wedding-gift from Mr Reynold and myself.”

Hux was past blushing. He prayed for his blood to coagulate in his veins and stop his pulse dead.

Then, just as he had found the courage to open his mouth, perhaps to scream, there came an odd, keening noise from the scullery and Mrs Reynold blithely jumped up, patting Hux in a maternal way upon his knee.

“Think on it, Mr Hux. It is a most excellent plan. I could send to my supplier for such an article within the week.”

And, cooing strangely, she shut the door behind her.

“Good God in Heaven.” Hux drank all of the rich, perfumed liquor in his glass, and then availed himself of another. “Of all the salacious, slanderous, viper-tongued harpies…”

Hux stopped, for it was not so; Mrs Reynold was emphatically none any of those things. She was, unfortunately perhaps, a perceptive friend. An understanding, loyal, compassionate friend, in a world which was hostile in every way to what Hux essentially _was_. 

“Here we are, Mr Hux.” Returning from the kitchen, Mrs Reynold held in her arms a curlicue of pale orange fur, a velvety spiral which resembled nothing so much as the peach pastries which Mitaka and Hux had once eaten in a café along the Seine. 

“It is an…animal.”

“The farm manager’s best rat-catcher had a handful of brawny little babes. And I thought instantly of you, and your sorry solitude.”

She placed the kitten in Hux’s lap of letters. 

Hux pulled a face as if she had just heaped manure upon him. 

“And do we have rats? A veritable infestation of vermin which would justify such an inclusion and expense into our lives?”

“We have something worse, Mr Hux.” Mrs Reynold picked up her exquisite bonnet. Her hand stalled upon the doorhandle. “We have a good, kind man who is very much alone.”

The kitten made a soft noise. Hux somehow found that he was stroking its small ears. 

“Well.” He dared not look up, for his eyes were wet; perhaps some allergic reaction to the creature’s fur was making them so. “I thank you for the thought. Let us hope that she will fulfil her role in this household admirably.”

Mrs Reynold wished Mr Hux good night, and went off to meet her husband’s fine carriage, which customarily waited for her in the lane. 

There was a silence, then, only sporadically interrupted by the kitten’s small nonsenses. 

Hux sat for some long while, watching the bats flying above the garden, flicks of darkness against the sombre colours of the sky. 

Eventually, he picked up the correspondence lying unopened at his knee.

Deciding to keep his cousin’s until the last, because it was bound to be a lifeline of good cheer and amusing observation, Hux took hold of an envelope on which was written his name and address in a most attractive and unknown hand. 

He felt his face grow hot as he handled the contents; it was from none other than Mr Kylo Ren. 

The kitten made a high-pitched complaint as Hux stirred in his chair. 

“Disaster!” Mr Hux murmured to himself, for Mr Ren made it plain, in his American way, that he intended to visit Mr Hux in the very near future. 

Mr Hux retrieved a calendar, hoping to plan a socially acceptable escape from the ordeal. Perhaps a pressing prior engagement could be concocted for the date proposed. A funeral. A holiday. A sudden urge to join the newly-formed French Foreign Legion.

But the Fates had decreed otherwise; Hux slumped heavily in his chair.

Mr Ren would be knocking on Hux’s door the very next day. 

Hux shivered despite the glad yellow of the fire; he cursed his artistic mind, which he had trained since boyhood to recall details as if they were freshly beneath his eyes.

He pictured, far too easily, and with far too much clarity, a trim waist. Long fingers. A steady gaze falling upon him, from a comely, open face.

"Oh, Millicent," Hux bowed his head in defeat. "Whatever shall we do?"


	4. Chapter 4

“There is altogether too much countryside in England! And why are all dresses so ill-suited to every blasted thing one might want to do in them?”

Kylo Ren smiled understandingly at the familiar complaints of his companion, and helped her to climb over the umpteenth stile along the scarcely serviceable trackway. Were it not for the constricting satin of her sleeves and skirts, he had little doubt that Gwendoline could vault each obstacle far more ably than he, such was the unfair advantage of wearing fitted, buckled britches.

“I believe they are generally designed to accentuate female poise and docility, my dear Gwennie, rather than athleticism.”

The train from London had left them an hour earlier at a tiny, rural railway station.

There were no such things as carriages to be hired, unless once was hauling livestock, so Kylo and his friend carried their baggage and their painting equipment across the demure dip of Starkilworth Vale, with Kylo becoming more nervous and excited with each and every step.

Headed away from the trim village square, Kylo saw and felt Mr Hux in every field and cottage that they passed. Every tone of leaf and pebble, every slant of sunlight that beat down across their path, conjured up the painter as much as his paintings.

Both the man and the artist contained within the American’s supple form walked hand-in-hand in this matter; both were captivated, and hardly a mile went by that did not prompt Kylo to wonder aloud as to whether or not Mr Hux’s _actual_ feet had trodden the very gravel that was now being scuffed so speculatively by his travel-wearied boots.

Miss Gwendoline eventually cursed such sentiment like a Bowery barrow-boy.

“Stop mooning and get me across this ditch, you benighted idiot. Would that your impeccable taste in art extended to those who you worship for it. You felt similarly for Edward, if you recall,” she added with well-meant cruelty, “and look how that turned out.”

Kylo raised his countenance honestly to hers. “A hundred years hence, Gwennie, Mr Hux will be justly feted as the visionary he truly is. I cannot believe that someone capable of painting a rainbow so lovingly, so brutally, so sensually, is as cold and unfeeling as he has so far appeared to be.”

In reply, Miss Gwendoline merely threw sticks at him.

Not many of them missed.

“And as for Edward,” Kylo said the name with an air of sad distaste, “I hope you know that I am wiser now. For then, I felt myself so _different_ from others, in my attachments and nature, so confused and lonely about how I wished to love, that my body and soul were very easily won by a few kind and passionate words.”

“Well,” Miss Gwendoline said, more gently, “as it would appear that Mr Hux is incapable of either passion or kindness, perhaps you are in not as much danger as I had feared.”

And so saying, she strode through the ankle-deep mud with her hem and head held high.

The hedgerows soaked the heavy air with rich scents and thorny brambles in equal measure.

The two trudged on, one surly and one exulting.

It was a working landscape; there was plentiful horse and cattle dung piled along the verge outside the farms they passed, where once or twice they were offered milk or pump-water. There were bee-hives attached in a neighbourly way to every household, and the bees were busy, feasting upon the blousy blossoms of pasture and meadow, so that above the noises of sheep and shepherd was a constant symphony of drones and whirrs.

Gwendoline watched her friend for some while before prodding at him with a spear of holly.

“Edward’s artistic community in New England was also very different to this backwater, my dear. I do not say he was a good man, but at least he was not a narrow one. Beware you do not show your tastes too plainly.”

Kylo had known that this lecture would come eventually too. “Please do not concern yourself,” he made a rueful face. “I understand that _caution_ is required, and promise not to make a fool of both of us.”

Then, he turned a corner and stopped, dropping his burdens, napsack and easel, pencil-case and bundle, into the dust.

Here, at last, was Mr Armitage Hux’s place of origin.

Simple, but harmonious, with a red roof and teal shutters, dense creepers were like worked bronze against the sturdy grey stone walls.

Window-boxes tumbled out a froth of flowers over every sill. Wind chimes in the Roman style cast out their sparkling sounds in such peals as the breezes saw fit to manufacture.

Kylo stepped forward, spellbound. Next to the house, the kitchen plot was a crowded palette of fragrant herbs and virile stands of fruits and vegetables. From this noble and purposefully-beating heart, the rest of the garden went uphill in a series of lively steps, stealing sunlight from the rolling shoulder of land on which the building itself was pinned, like a jewel to a shawl of richest green velvet.

Creamy paths of shingle roamed here and there, designed to take the feet of any happy wanderer through grove after grove of sumptuous foliage, past blooms and bird’s nests and a slipping, sparkling brook.

“Lord above.” Gwendoline looked at Kylo’s rapt expression. “You cannot fall in love with a man because of his carrots, Ky,” she hissed. “I simply forbid it.”

“It is too late, Gwennie,” Kylo said, only half in jest, “this wonderland has merely made my longing irretrievable.”

And he laughed such a laugh as he said it, to make further grumbling or criticism shrivel upon Miss Gwendoline’s sharp tongue.

Her friend meandered forward, eye caught by Mr Hux's fine collection of figurative statuary, pieces of carved marble dreaming delicately in perfect repose amid the summer seething of stalk and seed-head. A half-size depiction of Achilles and Patroclus faced a small bench. Kylo could not help but imagine how Mr Hux might take his leisure there, perhaps with his cuffs rolled up to his elbows, content to keep company with these great historical lovers, whose marble limbs clutched each other in such tender adoration.

“And who might you be? Skulking and creeping amongst our rhododendrons?” A tall woman suddenly opened the front door and peered aggressively out. She wiped her hands on her blood-stained apron and gave Kylo a most disconcerting head-to-toe appraisal, as if gauging if he was fit for consumption. “If you’re a hawker, my delectable young man, then best show me your wares.”

And she winked.

Kylo stood stock still. “I…I…have nothing to offer…”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that…”

The woman put her hand on her hip.

Behind him, Gwendoline started chuckling. “Ky, your face. Talk about vermillion!”

“I am pleased to have amused you.” Kylo snapped sideways. “Be so good as to remind me why I did not leave you behind in the Catskills, you wretched excuse for a friend?”

“Now, now, children.” Mrs Reynold introduced herself and pulled a genteel ivory pipe from her pinafore pocket. Very soon a strong smell of burnt herbs wafted about the three. “I have an inkling that you might well be the visitors that have had my poor Mr Hux high-tailing out into the countryside at dawn this fine day. Mr Ren, I presume?”

She did an ironic little curtsey.

“How rude he is.” Gwendoline whispered. “To flee as if from a foe.”

“He is not within?” Kylo did not conceal as much of his disappointment as he would have liked.

“In truth, he is rarely indoors," Mrs Reynold confided, "not when there is still a blade of meadow-grass left which he feels he has not painted a thousand times.”

“Oh,” Kylo ran a hand through his sun-hot hair. “We have travelled far, very far, to…to…make his acquaintance.”

It sounded so formal a thing, so dusty, compared to the thrilling, liquifying ache Kylo endured, whenever he thought of Mr Hux’s works. Or Mr Hux himself.

“I know it. And my advice for your next visit would be to spring out from behind a stand of lavender, entirely unannounced. Mr Hux is not one for company, more’s the pity.”

“You seem familiar, Ma’am.” Gwendoline frowned, appraising the elegant housekeeper for a moment. “But your provenance eludes me.”

“Perhaps it is because I am clothed?” Mrs Reynold rejoined, without embarrassment. “Naked, you would probably grasp more keenly at the resemblance. I was, for a time, muse and model to many artists on the continent. It was a decade or two ago, to be sure, but in many ways, I am immortal.”

Gwendoline slapped her skirts. “Of course, you are in Claude David’s finest work; _“’Girl with a white fan.’_ ”

“Amongst other triumphs.” Mrs Reynold bowed like a dandy.

“And when will Mr Hux be back?” Kylo asked, as the two woman seemed content to chatter on.

“I should have known. Those cheekbones!” Gwendoline clapped delightedly.

Kylo sighed. “Perhaps we could wait for him in the lane, if not the garden?”

“Nonsense. Come in, children.” Mrs Reynold patted her hair. “Charming as I am in bright sunlight, I would confess that the shade of the kitchen will favour me further, and I am in the midst of making sausages, which are quite Mr Hux's favourite thing.”

She winked again at Mr Ren, perplexingly, and stood back to allow Gwendoline to stride by, heading into the cool of Hux’s bohemian hallway.

She then waved vaguely in the direction of the orchard.

“He will not be very far off, Mr Ren, if you care to search in that direction. When his emotions become too much for him, Mr Hux prefers the refuge of the riverside. Our most romantic little waterway is yonder; a great traveller like yourself will not miss it, I am sure, for it is a great wet thing, and full of fish.”

The stout door slammed shut before Kylo could say very much else.

And yet his thoughts ran to hope, not least because the place near which he had been instructed to seek out Mr Hux was evidently _‘romantic’_ , so perhaps half the battle of second impressions was already won.

Even more interestingly, it appeared that Mr Armitage Hux, whom Gwennie thought so terribly bereft of all feeling, had been positively _overcome_ with emotion at the mere thought of meeting Mr Ren again.

Resolutely, Kylo brushed down his britches, stole a pear from a nearby bough, and started off through the trees.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun’s fiery tongue lapped at Kylo’s neck, slipping wetly beneath his collar and along his jawline and behind his ears. 

He was forced to take off his coat as he waded through the hardy native grasses. The meadow spiked up tall around his legs, dense and dark-bladed with pulsing sap that, when crushed, scented the air like some intoxicating foreign drug.

Kylo was somewhat wrong-footed; he had not understood England to be like this _at all_.

It was noon, and near every refuge of shadow had been scalded away. 

Sweat trickled along the creases of his body. 

Jewelled insects scratched the air with sound. 

Hardly a bird swirled in the sky, and there was deep, pregnant stillness laid upon the whole, fertile, summer-heated valley. 

Kylo was relieved and dizzy when at last he gained a clustering of riverside foliage, although he suspected that it was not just the shade he sought so single-mindedly, nor the wide silver riband of water itself, attractive a prize as that no doubt was.

He pushed through the draping willow-whips until he found himself sinking softly to his knees upon a stretch of sandy banking. Leaning forward over the mossy edge, he dangled his hands in the blessed balm of the ice-cold current. 

It was so pure a sensation, and his resting place felt so private and secure, full covered as it was with arching boughs and interlocking leaves, that Kylo risked undoing his shirt to the waist, the better to rinse away the accumulated grime of the day. The slosh of water set his skin tingling, as he sluiced and scrubbed unselfconsciously at his chest and belly. He was just feeling daring enough to drag his shirt from his britches, the better to mop at his back with his wetted handkerchief, when he was near startled out of his wits by a clear, low voice.

“Wicked creature. I know that you are there. I am in no mood to play peek-a-boo, so pray, come out from your hiding-place _immediately_.”

The accusation jolted Kylo from his innocent ablutions. 

“You make a very poor spy, if that is the role Mrs Reynold has laid upon you. Let me see you, then, in all of your glory.”

Kylo could not move. He blushed furiously, and made to call out his apologies for his deploringly dishevelled state.

“I fear it is your tail that gives you away, kitten mine.”

Kylo paused, for as much as he wanted Mr Hux to call him by sweet pet-names, it seemed too soon to be so blessed. A thin, high, mewling rose above the noise of the river, as if some tiny beast was joining in intelligently with the conversation. 

“Hungry, you say? Well then, it is probably to the good that I have brought your lunch with me, is it not? Get out of that paint-box at once and I shall feed you.”

By peering cautiously through the curtain of leaves, Kylo could see across the racing stream. His heart soon echoed the quick beat of the water, as he regarded Mr Hux only a few yards distant.

Kylo looked greedily upon his quarry, run to such attractive ground.

Nature had provided Mr Hux with a work-bench of sorts, in the form of a fallen tree-trunk, and a small, orange feline appeared to be entertaining Mr Hux as much as infuriating him, by slinking about amongst the artist’s accoutrements, and clattering quite a few out of their neatly appointed place.

“Steady, stowaway,” Mr Hux purred, in such tones that Kylo felt the warmth of them run right down his back. “Mrs Reynold has put into my luncheon a smoked herring, which saves us both the job of catching one.”

Mr Hux petted his companion affectionately, amused and absorbed, and Kylo could see at once how torn the man was between playing with the merry creature and taking up a stick of charcoal to draw her; his fingers fluttered in way that Kylo recognised, all too easily.

It was, in itself, a pleasing composition; the tawny bark, the marigold flash of fur, the softer gold of Mr Hux’s bright head, bent over his pet attentively, and Kylo found himself staring at those slender, restless hands with thoughts that were, quite suddenly, very little concerned with Art at all. 

After a moment more, Mr Hux straightened up and rubbed his brow on a rag, ruffling up his damp hair in a way that was most pleasingly uncivilised. 

“I must make something to sell, if I am to keep you in kippers,” Kylo heard him say, with a mocking firmness to his words that suggested Mr Hux was actually glad to have a friend, even a fish-eating scrap, bother him during his solitary work. “And please leave my glass bottles of pigment alone, you nuisance, for they cost me dear to have made.” 

The board on the easel was not overlarge, and Mr Hux worked quickly, and with building passion. 

Again and again he dipped into a neat wooden box at his knee, and Kylo hungered to see how he arranged such a portable treasure trove of paint as he clearly had at his disposal.

Mr Hux grew angry with himself. He damned this and that, often, though quietly, and paced a good deal. He switched his brush through the towering reeds at one point, whacking and muttering as if chastising his withholding muse, before finding some small epiphany which sent him back to the board with renewed vigour. 

Kylo could scarce believe his eyes. The group of painters he had left behind in America, although supposedly so defiant and unruly, had never used such coarse language, nor, more importantly, had they exhibited such animation as he was seeing here. 

The fire and the feeling pouring from Mr Hux was not merely surprising, it was also arousing, matching as it did _exactly_ how Ren often felt himself, when confronted with a difficult vista he wished to put under his brush. 

How hot-blooded a man was Mr Hux! To be stirred so by the act of creation! Kylo drank in how Mr Hux’s eyes were at once brilliant, yet also heavy-lidded, how his throat flushed, how he cursed and panted as he toiled towards completion.

Until, at last, he was done. 

“That will do for now, I think.” 

Mr Hux sounded blissful, and sated, as he wiped off his brushes and stood back, his lips bitten and red.

The cat merely stretched a paw skyward, as if she would make playthings of the scanty clouds. 

Kylo felt shamefully enlivened.

A sweet, trembling desire pricked at him, and his body felt over-sensitized, having suffered in short succession the effects of the blazing day, the chill of the waters, and then this revelatory glimpse of the real Mr Hux. 

Having been sat low and immobile for some time, Kylo leaned back and rubbed at a twitching muscle in his upper leg. His open thighs shook as he thumbed at the soreness there, and his parts grew hard in his britches.

Across the water, Mr Hux began to carefully pack away his things. 

Then, he proceeded to undress.

Kylo blinked.

Mr Hux untangled his cravat and then slipped out of his fitted waistcoat with a quiet grunt of pure pleasure. 

He then dealt with his shirt, removing it slowly. He wore nothing underneath. 

Mouth falling wide, Kylo moved his hands to cover his lap. 

Mr Hux continued to dispose of his boots and outer garments, and Kylo felt his breath grow more and more uneven, and he reddened, though there was none to see his disgrace, none to notice how painfully cramped and stiff he was becoming in his trousers.

Because Mr Hux, perspiring and half naked, was a sight to behold indeed. 

His arms were strong and slim, and Kylo wanted nothing more than to lick up the delicate crumbing of freckles that lay so daintily along the upper reaches of his pale chest and shoulders. 

“Come in with me, you lazy beast,” Mr Hux murmured, as he stretched and then walked out into the shallows. “You must be terribly sticky where you are.”

The foaming force of the water rose to coat and curl about Mr Hux’s legs, his soaked drawers clinging to the tendons and curves there, as he picked his way across the stream-bed. 

Kylo could see the shape of Mr Hux through the drenched material. 

The gully of where his legs met his hips. The shading of his hair. The outline of his manhood.

Then Mr Hux turned and bent to raise a cupped handful of cool water to his face and nape, and Kylo watched it run in riverlets down the stairs of his spine, soaking the rest of his underwear to transparency. The tops of Mr Hux’s buttocks showed plainly where the weight of the water dragged down his linens, and Kylo allowed himself a very quiet moan of shock, and desperation.

As Mr Hux ducked himself fully beneath the flow, to emerge moments later sparkling like some water-nymph, Kylo felt the full weight of his lust thicken further, and his head began to spin with improper thoughts. 

And yet Kylo respected Mr Hux like no other, and so he went to war with himself until Reason won, and he determinedly, heroically, shut his eyes.

But it was far, far too late to stop that which had been started; since London, Kylo had dreamed of Mr Hux _constantly_ , and it made no difference if he was looking at Mr Hux or if he was not, for Mr Hux was always there, unbidden, in his blood and in his thoughts. 

Defeated by desire, and by the sharp pain of the last few months of emptiness, Kylo slowly, longingly, let his heart dictate where his searching fingers should go. He gasped at his own trembling touch, for Kylo was a creature made for contact, for the sacrament and exchange of love, and he was very weary of having no-one to hold, and no-one who would hold him. 

Kylo unfastened his lacings and began to stroke his thickening length.

Mr Hux laughed with joy.

Kylo ground his knees into the gritty earth and pressed more firmly and more rhythmically at his flesh.

“So lovely, so satisfying.” Mr Hux cried, splashing about.

Kylo stifled his own lustful noises as he pushed his hips upwards, thrusting and twisting so that the friction grew near unbearable in its rough sweetness. 

The world was fruiting and quivering with growth all around him.

He smelt the soil and the rush of water, as he struggled free of his garments so that he could spend his seed somewhere it would not show, and somewhere where it would be at one with all that really mattered; life.

The river continued on.

Millicent chased a butterfly.

Kylo bowed his head as silent ecstasy overtook him. 

By the time he had regained his full senses, Mr Hux was back up on the embankment, tousled into adorable boyishness by the exercise. 

“Oh, if only we did not have to return to the cage of society, with all of its ridiculous rules!”

Kylo lifted his ear to listen, captivated, if a little dazed.

“I become more convinced than ever, in harmonious dells such as this, that I am not the same as others, but am, at heart, a wild thing made tame by my own cowardice,” Mr Hux sighed, as he clumsily shrugged on his restrictive clothing. “For make no mistake, ‘twas fear took me from my hearth this day. Fear of a beautiful man, with, I suspect, talent to match his looks.”

At this point, Mr Hux must have picked Millicent up, because there was a catty squawk of protest. 

“Hush my dear, I only wished to tell you that I must do better, to be as you are; brimming with courage and open to experience. Let me begin by seeking out this Mr Ren that I have ignored, and wronged, and fled from, and make my profound apologies to his lovely face, if he will but accept them from me.”

Kylo wanted to accept anything that Mr Hux had to give. 

For he too had become convinced of something, down there by the waterside; and the undeniable fact was that he had never wanted anybody or anything as truly as he wanted Mr Armitage Hux.


	6. Chapter 6

The sun was teetering down from its highest point when Hux eventually returned to the village along the cart-rutted main road.

He was a dreamer, and quite often a dawdler, and yet he found himself hurrying to return home to greet that greatest of rarities; a guest he truly desired to see.

“I really ought to call in at the butcher’s, Millie, for I have asked that he put by a few fresh pig’s bladders for me.” Hux had recently heard from Mitaka about a French artist who stored paint in such unbeautiful receptacles, and, fastidious nature aside, Hux was keen to try out such an innovation for himself. “As I am now encumbered on my travels with you, kitten, if I do not replace my heavy glass paint bottles, I will very soon have the burly arms of a Portsmouth docker.”

Millie leapt from Hux’s satchel, as if affronted, and began to winsomely terrorize a pigeon or two.

Hux blotted his forehead and cast a longing look at the Black Cloak Inn. He was exceedingly warm again, now that he was out of the cooling embrace of the river. The stalwart hostelry, although unrefined, was respectable enough to sell a version of lemonade that he had heard rivalled even Mrs Reynold’s own concoction, which he had long suspected was shipped in from Fortum’s anyway, despite her hinting at its home-made heritage.

His mouth watered.

He very much wanted to take the risk of entering the Inn, although there were dangers other than dissipation lurking within.

“Hello! Mr Hux? Hello there!”

It was, alas, too late. Upon catching sight of Rose, the landlord's daughter, cooing from the doorway of her father’s Inn, Hux made himself appear immediately interested in the nearest shop window, so as to avoid the necessity for conversation with his most ardent admirer.

“Seems hardly decent, Mr Hux.” Rose called over loudly, as she skipped across the square. Hux inclined his head politely, and inhaled the smell of beer wafting up from her stained pinafore as she drew close. "Putting such frilly things on show, in full view of a gentleman’s eyes.”

Glancing up, Hux found that he had accidentally stopped outside of the haberdasher’s window, and appeared to be perusing a cascade of lace-edged handkerchiefs and assorted trims.

A mannequin, wearing something outrageously flounced, beckoned him with ribbons and bows.

“Whatever will be next, sir? Shops displaying all of our unmentionables? Those silky, secret things which are fit only for a wife to display to her husband?”

Rose fluttered her skirt a little as she enunciated the last word extremely clearly.

“Oh.” Hux contributed, fearing the rising hem, “one would hope that never comes to pass…not in England, at any rate.”

He forbore to enlighten her as to some of the sights Dopheld had shown him in Paris, alongside the art supply factory the Mitaka family had owned since the Renaissance.

“Although to be sure those parasols right there are so very pretty,” Rose added, stepping even closer. “Just the sort of token a girl likes a fellow to treat her too, if he’s a mind.”

“Uh. Yes. No doubt they are very well manufactured and admirably suited to their purpose.” Hux gently waggled his leg, as Millicent dug her claws in above his ankle.

“Well, Miss Rose, I must not detain you from your work…”

“Ooh, a kitten!” Rose bent low.

The sensible creature evaded her grasp by climbing up Hux’s folded and corded easel, jumping onto his shoulders to escape Rose’s clutching hands.

Rose giggled. “Just like a tiger in a circus, Mr Hux.”

Millicent hissed back.

“It’s a good job you have a private income, else we would all think you quite off your head, sir, what with all of your funny ways. Carrying a cat on your back, of all things! And I mean, all that splashing paint about! Making pictures of such ordinary things, farms and woodlands which anybody could just step outside and look at any day they chose! And, a man of your manners, and looks, and such a nice cottage, not yet taking a wife? Whoever heard of such a thing?”

“Well…”

“Rosie! Get your backside behind the bar, girl.” Mr Tico yelled his request across the square. “We have guests to fix up, as you well know.”

Undaunted, for her father doted upon his only child, Rosie turned and stuck out her tongue.

Hux started shuffling towards the lower end of the village, where such tradesmen such as the grocers and bakers lay, more eager than ever to get to his bladders.

“I do not wish you to be chastised, so will let you get on, Miss Tico.”

“Oh, what a gentleman you are! And 'guests', indeed! We have a right pair under our roof just presently, to be sure!” Rose smirked, ignoring all menfolk entirely as usual, and whispering in Hux’s flushed ear in a confiding sort of a way. “Father nearly suffered conniptions, what with them insisting on one room between them. But he could hardly say right out that he thought they wasn’t married, now could he? With Mr Ren paying for the entire week in advance like that?”

“Mr Ren? Mr Kylo Ren is staying at The Black Cloak? A week? I had not thought he would have need of lodgings for any length of time.”

“Why yes! With his pet giant of a lady-friend, no less. Inseperable, they are indeed.” Rose took her leave reluctantly, and with a curtsey which strategically displayed her throat and ankles. “And just the one big bed...Can you imagine such sin, Mr Hux,” she said, wistfully, in his direction.

“I cannot,” Hux said, stepping away swiftly, while swallowing down a confusion of emotions, the largest proportion of which was, uncharacteristically, a squirming gutful of common or garden jealousy.

Millicent descended down the lean ladder of Hux’s body as soon as they were left alone.

Hux stopped her with a hug. Her fiery fur was a balm to his chilled soul.

“It is only fair,” he sighed, releasing his captive, “that someone so…so…accomplished as Mr Ren should have…affection aplenty. I am really most pleased that he has such comfort and companionship from a…friend, no matter how…informal the arrangements may be in the eyes of the church. I at least,” he continued, “have you.”

But Millicent was already stalking away, to stand vigil at the fishmonger’s, where experience had already taught her that bright eyes and plaintive wails often brought their own piscine rewards.

And so it was that Mr Hux returned home not much later that day, exhausted, disheartened, and carrying a small, dripping sack through which the noxious fumes of unwashed entrails wafted penetratingly.

Mrs Reynold threw the door open upon his approach.

Her disappointed expression told him plainly that his quiet little house was empty, save for herself.

Hux was, pitifully, less relieved than he ought to have been.

“Ah.” Mr Hux said quietly, “I believe I have an apology to make to Mr Ren. I shall write this very evening, do not fear.”

“Pah! Discard all thoughts of your quill, Mr Hux, and also, if you please, your bag of…tripes. I have invited your Mr Ren to our weekly dinner tonight, so you may make your absence up to him in person.”

“Indeed, I hardly think I can face him and his...friend, Mrs Reynolds."

“Well, if you do not come, Mr Hux,” Mrs Reynold added sweetly, “it will not just be that particular offal you will have to carry around in a little bag, but certain parts of your own tender anatomy.”

Mr Hux decided that he would, for once, arrive on time for such an important engagement, and that he would be wearing his best blue coat.


	7. Chapter 7

Darkness danced across Starkilworth Vale in skirts of sequinned velvet, the sunset froth of pink and mandarin still petticoating daintily at its hem. The promise of the evening’s gaiety was not at all reflected in Mr Hux’s demeanour, however. 

He did not expect to enjoy himself _at all_.

He crossed the whispering fields. The larger part of his heart wished fervently that he might be allowed to stop just there, and sit quietly upon a stile, to hear their honeysuckled secrets in full. 

But unfortunately, his class, and the fashions of his age dictated that there was apparently more meaning to be found in a silk-wallpapered, well-lit drawing room, than there was in the bosom of sweet Nature herself.

Hux sighed under the weight of duty, and turned betwixt the hedgerows towards the Reynold's mansion. 

Thoughts of Mr Ren dominated his mind. He tried to rehearse what it was he would say, but no well-designed phrases occurred to him, and he became of a mind to mourn the loss of Mr Ren’s friendship before even attempting to gain it, because that way was infinitely easier, and as the parish clergy would undoubtedly have it, much safer for his soul. 

Yet, as he was resolving, for once and for all, that it must be so, and as he grew near the gravelled turning-circle that lay in front of the imposing home of his house-keeper, Hux noticed a figure, pacing by the low wall of the fountain.

Hux slowed even further. Then he bowed in surprise at none other than Mr Ren himself. 

It was a thing far too improbable, to think that Mr Ren could have been watching out for his approach, so Hux assumed that his fellow artist was seeking sanctuary from the jovial crowd within. 

That their sympathies were thus aligned brought a shiver to his spine. 

“Why, Mr Ren,” Hux nodded in a formal manner. “Good evening.” 

It was evident that the first order of that business ought to be an apology. Yet upon seeing Mr Ren’s open countenance, Hux could think of no way to frame his lack of welcome for Mr Ren and his companion at his front door that was not dishonest. 

The truth was that he had grown wilful and selfish. When he wanted to paint, he painted. When he wanted to roam the countryside, brush in hand, he roamed. And when he wanted to run from something that he also very dearly wanted to put his mouth upon in all sorts of interesting ways, he ran. 

“Yes.” Ren inclined his well-shaped head to one side, as if in wonder. “Truly, I did not even think that you would come, as the many people I have spoken to upon the matter have confided to me your gentle and retiring habits.” He stepped forward a pace. “But now that you are here, at last, it is a tremendously good evening indeed.”

Hux flushed, to hear his obstinate and mousy ways described so charitably, and in such a warm tone, and also because Mr Ren in twilight was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. 

“You are too kind,” he demurred, “and to be truthful with you, Mrs Reynold is not above sending her most intimidating driver in her most ostentatious carriage to fetch me, should I attempt to send my excuses instead of my actual person.” He looked down at his dusty feet, conscious that his scrutiny of Mr Ren’s dark eyes had exceeded beyond what was proper. “So, here I am.”

“Yes,” Ren echoed, as if it was the most satisfying thing in the world, “here you are.” 

Ren wanted to go on to compliment Hux on how well his cornflower-coloured coat became him, on his lovely neat waist and the immortal golden glow of his hair, but bit on his tongue. 

His intense study of Mr Hux’s works made it hard to recall that they were strangers, and yet it was so.

Like an eager scholar, he had also learned all the biographical details he could about Mr Armitge Hux from Mr Pryde’s newspaper articles, even though it was clear that the famous art critic had no great love of Mr Hux, compared to those painters that chased fame and therefore courted his influential attention. 

But oh, how Ren longed for the two of them to be on terms of intimacy, easy and close!!!!

A white owl flew silently over their heads.

Distantly, the cows grumbled over the bovine lot in life.

A chilly breeze stirred through the hair that swept Mr Ren's collar. In a moment, they would really have to go inside the fine, and very generously heated house.

“I have long wanted to talk to you. About paint.” Ren stumbled forth desperately into conversation, cursing his clumsiness. 

“Oh. Its, er, usage? In general?” Mr Hux replied, at once disappointed and relieved. 

“I am only interested in you.” Ren blinked. “I mean…your methods hold a fascination for me. Professionally speaking.”

“Pig membrane,” Hux asserted, hurriedly, in his eagerness to engage. 

“Sorry?”

“I mean…the internal organs of pigs intrigue me enormously. I tie them with twine.”

“Oh. Well...”

“Not that I would do that, ordinarily. To offal.” Hux for some reason thought to point at his own stomach area. “Only I am experimenting with paint storage. In pigs’ guts.”

Ren stared dutifully at Mr Hux’s midriff, lured by the memory of what lay beneath the layers of linen and cotton. The smooth, pale skin of Mr Hux’s belly, the tantalising hint of fine, coppery fur beneath his navel…. 

“Yes,” Ren agreed, mindlessly, drugged by Hux’s proximity, and the hot odours of linseed oil and dried catnip that emanated from Mr Hux like the most exotic of perfumes. “I should be most happy to see these…membranes. And those twines.”

Ren had not endured a more asinine exchange in all of his years of manhood, yet endure it he did, because Mr Hux was somehow managing to smile awkwardly at him.

“It is very good of you to take such an interest,” Mr Hux said faintly, “after my recent ungentlemanly lapse in manners.” He spread his palms. A stubborn lick of ochre remained, endearingly, upon one wrist. “I find I have no excuse for it, other than I am made rather surly by lack of intercourse. Of a social nature.” 

Mr Hux then coloured to the tips of his ears, and to Ren it was like a rosy dawn had somehow chosen to rise, right there beneath the gleaming moon. 

“I beg you not to think of it.” Ren instinctively stepped nearer still. “I should have been more delicate in my approaches.” 

Mr Hux examined the horizon and frowned. To even the most casual observer, Mr Ren’s delicacy, so plainly writ upon his intelligent brow, and in the sublime lines of his broad shoulders, could hardly be in doubt. “Perhaps you would allow me to make recompense in some way..?” He found, to his breathless consternation, that his hand was accidentally brushing against Mr Ren’s sleeve.

Neither of them pulled away. 

“No restitution is necessary, Mr Hux, but I would be honoured to do anything you chose, if it would but set your mind at rest…” 

“Would you consider revisiting my hospitality? Or is it too much to ask?”

“You could not possibly ask me too much…”

“Then perhaps we might…”

"I am at your disposal..."

_“There you damn well are, Ky.”_

Mr Hux leapt back from Mr Ren so suddenly that he stumbled, as Miss Gwendoline, resplendent in peacock-trimmed satin, sought Ren out by means of bellowing loudly from the top step of the entranceway. 

Hux, rather wildly, came to a decision. 

“Mr Ren,” Hux spoke quietly yet firmly, entirely confounded by his own forwardness. “Whilst I should not presume to think that an invigorating person such as yourself would not be otherwise engaged for the rest of your sojourn here, please know that my time, and my hearth, and indeed, my studio are at your disposal for the rest of your stay in our fair county.”

Further conversation was impossible; Hux was altogether drained by his daring, and Miss Gwendoline was upon them, smiting Hux with a glare worthy of a medusa.

Hux nodded warily, and bowed cautiously, and asked for Miss Gwendoline’s forgiveness too, virtually extending it as far back as the occasion of his very birth. 

Then, only walking once into the wall of the fountain, and once into the portico kerb, Mr Hux departed, embarrassed and exhilarated.

Ren took the opportunity to pinch Gwennie’s arm.

“You brute, Kylo! I was merely come looking for you.” She threw a small stone into the basin of the fountain. “Such a prim little bucket of lukewarm water." She pulled a face. "Why ever do you waste your time dabbling with him?”

Ren sighed once more, to make his point. 

“Mr Hux has hidden depths, as I have told you these past dozen times.”

“If you say so. But pray tell me we are not giving up the rowdy comforts of the Black Cloak Inn in order that you may explore those depths?”

“Please Gwennie, if you do me one great favour in our friendship, then it would be that you stay exactly where you are lodged, and allow me to take up Mr Hux’s kind invitation to put up at his house... _alone_.”

She slapped Ren’s back in friendly bewilderment. “Oho, Kylo! You do surprise me! I see that I have interrupted some great seduction! It is as well, for I do not wish to tarry in this backwater forever. Perhaps if you take your tumble with the man, we can at last move on to Vienna.” 

“I was not the one doing the seducing,” Ren said softly, and touched the place on his elbow where Mr Hux’s fingers had gently alighted, not a few moments earlier. His fingers trembled and he all at once realised the sweet danger he was truly in. “He does not even know it, Gwennie, but the true tempter here is... _him."_

**Author's Note:**

> Christoph is Sailortechie on Twitter/sailortechie on Tumblr. I'm zigzag-wanderer on Tumblr


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